


Better This Way

by QwahaXahn



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Adorable Jester Lavorre, Amnesia, Angst and Feels, Caleb Widogast Has Issues, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Caleb Widogast is a Mess, Caleb Widogast-centric, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff-to-Angst, Good Friend Jester Lavorre, Good Parent Nott | Veth Brenatto, Hurt Caleb Widogast, Memory Loss, Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast Friendship, Oblivious Jester Lavorre, POV Caleb Widogast, Parent Nott | Veth Brenatto, Pining, Pining Caleb Widogast, Protective Nott | Veth Brenatto, Self-Loathing Caleb Widogast, Temporary Amnesia, Unrequited Love, Widojest - Freeform, angsty ending, funny and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26623258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QwahaXahn/pseuds/QwahaXahn
Summary: Caleb Widogast wakes up and remembers nothing except his friends and this strange island. For just a moment, he is happy... and then it all comes rushing back.A closer look at the moment in C2x105 when Caleb loses his memory and is temporarily freed from the weight of all he has been through and done. With some Widojest on the side because I love them.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Fjord & Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett & Nott | Veth & Caleb Widogast & Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 4
Kudos: 116





	Better This Way

He blinked.

He blinked again.

A third time. Had the morning light always been this bright? He couldn’t remember.... how odd.

He looked over to his left, pushing himself up onto his elbows as a few messy, copper locks fell across his eyes. All around him, he saw his friends checking on each other, taking stock and making sure the night hadn’t caused them to... caused them to... to...?

“Everybody know who they are?” a high-pitched, raspy voice asked. He recognized that voice. Nott! No... Veth.

A stern-looking, slim half-orc stepped up near Veth. Fjord looked a little disheveled, but his eyes were keen as he reached down to help Jester upright and inspected her face. Watching those two together, a sharp little needle poked its hole into his chest. He looked away.

Veth met his gaze, brows slightly furrowed. Checking. As always. _Always?_ He smiled back at her just a little, to tell her _‘I am okay’_. The furrows deepened, and the halfling opened her mouth to say something. But he had already turned to the others.

Caduceus and Beauregard seemed fine as well. At least, as fine as those two got. He saw Yasha too—strong and stern as ever. And, of course, Vilya, with the equal parts wise-and-somber expression she’d had on her dark, sunburned face since they’d arrived here.

“Hmmmm...” He thought back to the moment of their arrival... and found that he couldn’t recall why they had come. Or where they were. Or... anything before the island. He remembered ships. And they had a mission, to come here and to... what?

_Oh no._

“I don’t—” he stammered. “Some—I’m...” He looked at Veth. “You know, I’m a little bit off.” She stepped forward to look up at him, eyes still intense with worry, and he placed a hand by her face. “I’m in a good mood, though,” he offered, hoping that might provide some reassurance. He didn’t like seeing her so concerned.

“...you’re in a _good_ mood?” Veth replied, eyebrows shooting up.

“Oh yeah, then something’s definitely off.” Beau drawled, folding her arms.

Immediately, Cad and Jester murmured in agreement and began fumbling to call up spells to their fingertips. He took a hesitant step backward, looking between his friends and trying to figure out what was going on.

“Better mood?” Veth prompted him. He gave her a helpless shrug.

Fjord pushed toward him. “Tackle him!” For a terrifying moment, it seemed like the others were on board with that plan—but then the half-orc waved his hand. “No, I’m just kidding.”

Caduceus’s low, relaxed voice cut through the chuckles that ensued. “Which of us wants to... wants to take it?”

“Boulder, parchment, shears?” Jester offered, holding out her hands to play the game. The other two healers in the room nodded and huddled together to hash out the results between them.

“What are we doing?” he called out, looking between the group of spellcasters and the rest of his companions. Everything was happening so quickly, and he wished they would all stop for a moment and tell him what was going on.

The healers lined up and he automatically counted out for them under his breath as they played. “Eins, zwei, drei.”

As the anxious confusion welled up in his chest, he instinctively looked to the blue tiefling leading the group in their game. The little bits of light that caught her horns made them shine, and sent sparkling glints up from the many little shiny pieces she’d affixed to her clothes.

 _Jester, please tell me what’s happening,_ he wanted to say. Jester always knew what was going on. She always knew what to say. She helped him.

The first game seemed to go sideways somehow, since the players all chuckled and then went in for another round. At the end of that one, a mighty “ohhhh!” erupted from their collective lungs, and Jester lifted her hands in defeat. “Oh! Wait, that means I lost, so I should use my spell.”

“Yeah.” “Yes.”

She sighed, and then she turned to look at him. Her eyes were so rich, like chips of amethyst that had been polished out and sparked. He spotted the impish smile that always hid at the edge of her lips, and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to coax it out onto her face.

“Hi, Caleb,” she said, and his name came back to him on her sing-song voice.

“What are we doing?” Caleb asked. He looked into her eyes, and despite her happy face he saw something flicker in the pupils. Something apologetic. Something sad.

 _Please don’t be sad,_ he thought, frowning a little.

She smiled. “How are you doing today?”

Caleb thought about it. He felt... good. He felt content, with the people around him and the life he knew. “I’m doing so—”

Her hands reached out and touched his face just before the smile emerged. She patted his cheeks, and then held his face as the shimmering glow of restoration infused his mind. The hazy fog that had held him in check dissolved like cloudstuff. He hadn’t even noticed it was there before, but suddenly his mind felt as though it had been drenched in ice cold water and washed clean once more.

The first thing Caleb remembered was sitting in a cell with a little goblin girl.

Then he remembered the waltz.

Then he remembered the coat on the staff.

Then he remembered the Academy.

Then he remembered the fire.

Bren—

No.

 _Caleb_ breathed slowly out, his eyes going a little less focused. He blinked, slowly, as the old weight settled back into his core.

“Oh... he’s back, you guys!” Jester called out.

Veth appeared next to the tiefling. “You were smiling for a second.”

“You were happy,” the trickster agreed.

The two women studied his face, and Caleb took a deep breath to cut off the pity that was again threatening to overtake their expressions.

“It happens, sometimes,” he informed them.

Veth cracked her familiar grin—though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It looked really weird.”

“We knew you wouldn’t like it,” Caduceus said frankly, moving past them toward his bedroll.

He looked at Jester, and crushed all the little observations his mind made as he looked at her face—like the way she always held herself at an angle, head-tilted to look right at you like she really wanted to know how you felt. Or the way one little curl of blue locks teased its way closer and closer to the edge of her mouth. Or the—

“Uh. Th—um, thank you.”

She held his gaze and smiled, hands resting on her hips as she bumped him gently with one elbow. “You’re welcome.”

“Ja,” he nodded. “It’s better this way?”

There was a silence.

“Yes,” Fjord agreed.

Veth cocked her head. “Was that a question?”

“Period,” the half-orc nodded. “... Right?”


End file.
